Coeur d'Alene, Idaho labor confrontation of 1899
Encyclopedia
There were two related incidents between miners and mine owners in Coeur d'Alene: the Coeur d'Alene, Idaho labor strike of 1892
, and the Coeur d'Alene, Idaho labor confrontation of 1899.
The confrontation of 1899 resulted from the miners' frustrations with mine operators that paid lower wages; hired Pinkerton or Thiel
operatives to infiltrate the union; and routinely fired any miner who held a union card.
agent who had routinely provided union information to the mine owners. After several deaths, the U.S. army occupied the area and forced an end to the strike. The response to that violence, disastrous for the local miners' union, became the primary motivation for the formation of the Western Federation of Miners
(WFM) the following year.
In the period from 1899 to 1901,
The Bunker Hill Mining Company
at Wardner, Idaho
, was profitable, having paid more than $600,000 in dividends. Miners working in the Bunker Hill and Sullivan mines were receiving fifty cents to a dollar less per day than other miners, which at that time represented a significant percentage of the paycheck. The properties were the only mines in the district that were not unionized, and the Bunker Hill company had employed Pinkerton labor spies
to identify union members.
In April 1899, as the union was launching an organizing drive of the few locations not yet unionized, superintendent Albert Burch declared that the company would rather "shut down and remain closed twenty years" than to recognize the union. He then fired seventeen workers that he believed to be union members and demanded that all other union men collect their back pay and quit.
from Levi "Al" Hutton, the engineer later claimed at gun point. At each stop through Burke-Canyon
, more miners climbed aboard. In Mace, a hundred men climbed aboard. At Frisco, the train stopped to load eighty wooden boxes, each containing fifty pounds of dynamite. At Gem, 150 to 200 more miners climbed onto three freight cars which had been added to the train. In Wallace, 200 miners were waiting, having walked seven miles from Mullan
. Nearly a thousand men rode the train to Wardner
, the site of a $250,000 mill of the Bunker Hill mine. After carrying three thousand pounds of dynamite into the mill, they set their charges and scattered. Two men were killed, one of them a non-union miner, the other a union man accidentally shot by other miners. Their mission accomplished, the miners once again boarded the "Dynamite Express" and left the scene.
sent black soldiers
from Brownsville, Texas
and other areas, veterans of the Spanish-American war
, to round up 1,000 men and put them into bullpens. The arrests were indiscriminant; Governor Steunenberg's representative, state auditor Bartlett Sinclair believed that all the people of Canyon Creek
had a "criminal history," and "the entire community, or the male portion of it, ought to be arrested." The soldiers searched every house, breaking down the door if no one answered.
One thousand men were herded into an old barn, a two-story frame structure 120 feet long by 40 feet wide and filled with hay. It was "still very cold in those altitudes" and the men, having been arrested with no opportunity to bring along blankets, "suffered some from the weather." The overflow were herded into boxcars. The prisoners were then forced to build a pine board prison for themselves, and it was surrounded by a six-foot barbed wire fence patrolled by armed soldiers. Conditions remained primitive, and three prisoners died.
The U.S. Army followed escaping miners into Montana
and arrested them, returning them to Idaho, and failed to comply with jurisdictional or extradition laws. One man arrested and transported was a Montana citizen who had no connection to the Wardner events.
Two of the three county commissioners had been caught in the roundup, as had the local sheriff. These, too, were held prisoner. Later, a district court removed all of the county commissioners and the sheriff from office, charging that they'd neglected their official duties.
Emma F. Langdon
, a union sympathizer, charged in a 1908 book that Idaho Governor Frank Steunenberg
, who had been "considered a poor man," deposited $35,000 into his bank account within a week after troops arrived in the Coeur d'Alene district, implying that there may have been a bribe from the mine operators. Subsequent research appears to have uncovered the apparent source of this assertion. J. Anthony Lukas recorded in his book Big Trouble,
In his autobiography, WFM Secretary-Treasurer Bill Haywood
described Idaho miners held for "months of imprisonment in the 'bull-pen' — a structure unfit to house cattle — enclosed in a high barbed-wire fence." Peter Carlson wrote in his book Roughneck,
Some of the miners, never having been charged with any crime, were eventually allowed to go free, while others were prosecuted. Thirty-four-year-old Paul Corcoran, the father of three and "a highly respected member of the Burke community," was financial secretary of the Burke Miners Union. The state decided to make an example of him. No one could say he'd even been in the vicinity of the crime, but some had seen him riding on the roof of a boxcar of the Dynamite Express. The prosecution, whose salaries were paid by a $32,000 grant from the mine owners, argued that Corcoran should take the blame for planning the attack on the Bunker Hill mill. Corcoran was sentenced to seventeen years at hard labor. Eight more miners accused of leading the attack were scheduled for trial on charges of murder and/or arson, but bribed an army sergeant to allow them to escape. Hundreds more remained in the makeshift prison without charges.
Meanwhile, Sinclair developed a permit system which would prevent mines from hiring any miner who belonged to a union. The plan was designed to destroy the unions in the Coeur d'Alene district. General Henry C. Merriam
of the U.S. Army endorsed the permit system verbally and in writing, resulting in considerable consternation at the McKinley White House.
Surveying the situation, with hundreds of union miners locked up by the militia for a year or more — some still never having been charged with a crime — Bill Haywood came to one conclusion. He believed that the companies and their supporters in government — intent upon forcing wage cuts and employers' freedom to fire union miners — were conducting class warfare against the working class.
The editor of one local newspaper, Wilbur H. Stewart of the Mullan Mirror, dared to criticize the bullpen and its keepers. Sinclair appeared at his door alongside a major and several soldiers with unsheathed bayonets. Sinclair declared,
Stewart was taken to the bullpen, where he was assigned to garbage and latrine
duty. However, the paper did not stop publication; Stewart's young wife, Maggie, continued to publish the weekly. Sinclair impounded her type, and she contracted with another sympathetic publisher to continue the news. Eventually Stewart was released under instructions to end the criticism. He sold the newspaper instead.
Many populist elected officials in Shoshone County were rounded up for their support of the miners. The town sheriff of Mullan, Idaho
was arrested and sent to the bullpen.
May Arkwright Hutton
, whose husband was the engineer on the dynamite express, wrote a book, The coeur d' alenes: or, A Tale of the Modern Inquisition in Idaho, about the treatment of the miners, and her husband, at the hands of the mine owners and the sheriff.
Both Huttons and Ed Boyce
, head of the Western Federation of Miners
, had invested in the Hercules silver mine before the 1899 war. After they had become wealthy mine owners, May Hutton sought to buy back all copies of her book. Ed Boyce quit the miners union to manage a hotel in Portland.
Coeur d'Alene, Idaho labor strike of 1892
There were two related incidents between miners and mine owners in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho: the labor strike of 1892, and the labor confrontation of 1899....
, and the Coeur d'Alene, Idaho labor confrontation of 1899.
The confrontation of 1899 resulted from the miners' frustrations with mine operators that paid lower wages; hired Pinkerton or Thiel
Thiel Detective Service Company
The Thiel Detective Service Company was a private detective agency formed by George H. Thiel, a former Civil War spy and Pinkerton employee.The Thiel Detective Service Company headquarters were in St. Louis, Missouri. The company was formed to be a direct competitor to the Pinkerton Detective...
operatives to infiltrate the union; and routinely fired any miner who held a union card.
Background
Angered by wage cuts, Coeur d'Alene area miners conducted a strike in 1892. The strike erupted in violence when union miners discovered they had been infiltrated by a PinkertonPinkerton National Detective Agency
The Pinkerton National Detective Agency, usually shortened to the Pinkertons, is a private U.S. security guard and detective agency established by Allan Pinkerton in 1850. Pinkerton became famous when he claimed to have foiled a plot to assassinate president-elect Abraham Lincoln, who later hired...
agent who had routinely provided union information to the mine owners. After several deaths, the U.S. army occupied the area and forced an end to the strike. The response to that violence, disastrous for the local miners' union, became the primary motivation for the formation of the Western Federation of Miners
Western Federation of Miners
The Western Federation of Miners was a radical labor union that gained a reputation for militancy in the mines of the western United States and British Columbia. Its efforts to organize both hard rock miners and smelter workers brought it into sharp conflicts – and often pitched battles...
(WFM) the following year.
In the period from 1899 to 1901,
...Federal troops demonstrated the power of the back east [mine] owners, compelling some miners to work at gunpoint, others to build their own bull-pens, inventing the rustling card system so no man could hunt a job without the sheriff's approval, and using Governor SteunenbergFrank SteunenbergFrank Steunenberg was the fourth Governor of the State of Idaho, serving from 1897 until 1901. He is perhaps best known for his 1905 assassination by one-time union member Harry Orchard, who was also a paid informant for the Cripple Creek Mine Owners' Association...
, whom the miners had helped elect as a Populist, to oust the elected local authorities who might have some sympathy for the strikers.
The Bunker Hill Mining Company
Bunker Hill Mining Company
The Bunker Hill Mining Company was a mining company with facilities in Wardner, Idaho and surrounding areas.-History:When the mining boom began in the Coeur d'Alene, Idaho mining district, the area was lightly inhabited...
at Wardner, Idaho
Wardner, Idaho
Wardner is a city in Shoshone County, Idaho, United States. The population was 188 at the 2010 census.-Geography:Wardner is located at .According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of , all the land....
, was profitable, having paid more than $600,000 in dividends. Miners working in the Bunker Hill and Sullivan mines were receiving fifty cents to a dollar less per day than other miners, which at that time represented a significant percentage of the paycheck. The properties were the only mines in the district that were not unionized, and the Bunker Hill company had employed Pinkerton labor spies
Labor spies
Labor spies are persons recruited or employed for the purpose of gathering intelligence, committing sabotage, sowing dissent, or engaging in other similar activities, typically within the context of an employer/labor organization relationship....
to identify union members.
In April 1899, as the union was launching an organizing drive of the few locations not yet unionized, superintendent Albert Burch declared that the company would rather "shut down and remain closed twenty years" than to recognize the union. He then fired seventeen workers that he believed to be union members and demanded that all other union men collect their back pay and quit.
Dynamite Express
On April 29, 250 angry union members in their "digging clothes" seized a train in BurkeBurke, Idaho
Burke is a ghost town in Burke-Canyon in Shoshone County, Idaho, United States. Once a thriving silver and lead town, it is now far smaller than at its height. In 2002, about 300 people lived in or nearby Burke Canyon...
from Levi "Al" Hutton, the engineer later claimed at gun point. At each stop through Burke-Canyon
Burke-Canyon
Burke-Canyon is the canyon of the Burke-Canyon Creek, in the northernmost part of Shoshone County, Idaho. There are several ghost towns and/or remnants of former communities along the Burke-Canyon Road, which runs through the canyon....
, more miners climbed aboard. In Mace, a hundred men climbed aboard. At Frisco, the train stopped to load eighty wooden boxes, each containing fifty pounds of dynamite. At Gem, 150 to 200 more miners climbed onto three freight cars which had been added to the train. In Wallace, 200 miners were waiting, having walked seven miles from Mullan
Mullan, Idaho
Mullan is a city located in a sheltered canyon of the Coeur d'Alene Mountains in Shoshone County in the northern part of the U.S. state of Idaho. The population was 840 at the 2000 census and decreased to 692 at the 2010 census. The city is in the east end of the Silver Valley mining district; the...
. Nearly a thousand men rode the train to Wardner
Wardner, Idaho
Wardner is a city in Shoshone County, Idaho, United States. The population was 188 at the 2010 census.-Geography:Wardner is located at .According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of , all the land....
, the site of a $250,000 mill of the Bunker Hill mine. After carrying three thousand pounds of dynamite into the mill, they set their charges and scattered. Two men were killed, one of them a non-union miner, the other a union man accidentally shot by other miners. Their mission accomplished, the miners once again boarded the "Dynamite Express" and left the scene.
From Kellog to Wallace, ranchers and laboring people lined the tracks and, according to one eyewitness, "cheered the [union] men lustily as they passed."
Arrests
At the Idaho governor's request, President William McKinleyWilliam McKinley
William McKinley, Jr. was the 25th President of the United States . He is best known for winning fiercely fought elections, while supporting the gold standard and high tariffs; he succeeded in forging a Republican coalition that for the most part dominated national politics until the 1930s...
sent black soldiers
Buffalo Soldier
Buffalo Soldiers originally were members of the U.S. 10th Cavalry Regiment of the United States Army, formed on September 21, 1866 at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas....
from Brownsville, Texas
Brownsville, Texas
Brownsville is a city in the southernmost tip of the state of Texas, in the United States. It is located on the northern bank of the Rio Grande, directly north and across the border from Matamoros, Tamaulipas, Mexico. Brownsville is the 16th largest city in the state of Texas with a population of...
and other areas, veterans of the Spanish-American war
Spanish-American War
The Spanish–American War was a conflict in 1898 between Spain and the United States, effectively the result of American intervention in the ongoing Cuban War of Independence...
, to round up 1,000 men and put them into bullpens. The arrests were indiscriminant; Governor Steunenberg's representative, state auditor Bartlett Sinclair believed that all the people of Canyon Creek
Burke-Canyon
Burke-Canyon is the canyon of the Burke-Canyon Creek, in the northernmost part of Shoshone County, Idaho. There are several ghost towns and/or remnants of former communities along the Burke-Canyon Road, which runs through the canyon....
had a "criminal history," and "the entire community, or the male portion of it, ought to be arrested." The soldiers searched every house, breaking down the door if no one answered.
As Sinclair had ordered, they arrested every male: miners, bartenders, a doctor, a preacher, even the postmaster and school superintendent... Cooks and waiters [were] arrested in kitchens, diners at their supper tables... For desperate criminals, the men of Burke went quietly, the only gunshot was aimed at a "vicious watch dog."
One thousand men were herded into an old barn, a two-story frame structure 120 feet long by 40 feet wide and filled with hay. It was "still very cold in those altitudes" and the men, having been arrested with no opportunity to bring along blankets, "suffered some from the weather." The overflow were herded into boxcars. The prisoners were then forced to build a pine board prison for themselves, and it was surrounded by a six-foot barbed wire fence patrolled by armed soldiers. Conditions remained primitive, and three prisoners died.
The U.S. Army followed escaping miners into Montana
Montana
Montana is a state in the Western United States. The western third of Montana contains numerous mountain ranges. Smaller, "island ranges" are found in the central third of the state, for a total of 77 named ranges of the Rocky Mountains. This geographical fact is reflected in the state's name,...
and arrested them, returning them to Idaho, and failed to comply with jurisdictional or extradition laws. One man arrested and transported was a Montana citizen who had no connection to the Wardner events.
Two of the three county commissioners had been caught in the roundup, as had the local sheriff. These, too, were held prisoner. Later, a district court removed all of the county commissioners and the sheriff from office, charging that they'd neglected their official duties.
Aftermath
Arrangements with replacement officials installed by Sinclair demonstrated "a pattern."
The new regime's principal [sic] patronage—the fat contract for supplying food and drink to the bullpen's prisoners—had gone to Tony Tubbs, the former manager of Bunker Hill's boardinghouse, destroyed on April 29. Likewise, most of the thirty men Sinclair hired as special "state deputies" were either employees and former employees of the Bunker Hill Company or contractors for it. Among the most prominent was a saloonkeeper named W.C. "Convict" Murphy, who'd served time for horse stealing and cattle rustling. When Convict Murphy broke down people's doors, he was sometimes asked for a search warrant or other authority, at which he would draw a pair of six-shooters and say, "These are my warrants."
Emma F. Langdon
Emma F. Langdon
Emma Florence Langdon was born in Tennessee in 1875. She moved to the gold mining district of Cripple Creek, Colorado in 1903. She was an apprentice linotype operator who wrote that "women's place should be in the home and not in public life." In spite of such sentiments, she played a very visible...
, a union sympathizer, charged in a 1908 book that Idaho Governor Frank Steunenberg
Frank Steunenberg
Frank Steunenberg was the fourth Governor of the State of Idaho, serving from 1897 until 1901. He is perhaps best known for his 1905 assassination by one-time union member Harry Orchard, who was also a paid informant for the Cripple Creek Mine Owners' Association...
, who had been "considered a poor man," deposited $35,000 into his bank account within a week after troops arrived in the Coeur d'Alene district, implying that there may have been a bribe from the mine operators. Subsequent research appears to have uncovered the apparent source of this assertion. J. Anthony Lukas recorded in his book Big Trouble,
In 1899, when the state needed money for the Coeur d'Alene prosecutions, the Mine Owners' AssociationMine Owners' AssociationIn the United States a Mine Owners' Association, also sometimes referred to as a Mine Operators' Association or a Mine Owners' Protective Association, is the combination of individual mining companies, or groups of mining companies, into an association, established for the purpose of promoting the...
had come up with $32,000—about a third of it from Bunker Hill and Sullivan—handing $25,000 over to Governor Steunenberg for use at his discretion in the prosecution. Some of this money went to pay [attorneys].
In his autobiography, WFM Secretary-Treasurer Bill Haywood
Bill Haywood
William Dudley Haywood , better known as "Big Bill" Haywood, was a founding member and leader of the Industrial Workers of the World , and a member of the Executive Committee of the Socialist Party of America...
described Idaho miners held for "months of imprisonment in the 'bull-pen' — a structure unfit to house cattle — enclosed in a high barbed-wire fence." Peter Carlson wrote in his book Roughneck,
Haywood traveled to the town of MullanMullan, IdahoMullan is a city located in a sheltered canyon of the Coeur d'Alene Mountains in Shoshone County in the northern part of the U.S. state of Idaho. The population was 840 at the 2000 census and decreased to 692 at the 2010 census. The city is in the east end of the Silver Valley mining district; the...
, where he met a man who had escaped from the 'bullpen'. The makeshift prison was an old grain warehouse that reeked of excrement and crawled with vermin.
Some of the miners, never having been charged with any crime, were eventually allowed to go free, while others were prosecuted. Thirty-four-year-old Paul Corcoran, the father of three and "a highly respected member of the Burke community," was financial secretary of the Burke Miners Union. The state decided to make an example of him. No one could say he'd even been in the vicinity of the crime, but some had seen him riding on the roof of a boxcar of the Dynamite Express. The prosecution, whose salaries were paid by a $32,000 grant from the mine owners, argued that Corcoran should take the blame for planning the attack on the Bunker Hill mill. Corcoran was sentenced to seventeen years at hard labor. Eight more miners accused of leading the attack were scheduled for trial on charges of murder and/or arson, but bribed an army sergeant to allow them to escape. Hundreds more remained in the makeshift prison without charges.
Meanwhile, Sinclair developed a permit system which would prevent mines from hiring any miner who belonged to a union. The plan was designed to destroy the unions in the Coeur d'Alene district. General Henry C. Merriam
Henry C. Merriam
Henry Clay Merriam was a United States Army general. He received the United States military's highest decoration, the Medal of Honor, for his actions as a Union officer in command of African American troops during the American Civil War...
of the U.S. Army endorsed the permit system verbally and in writing, resulting in considerable consternation at the McKinley White House.
Surveying the situation, with hundreds of union miners locked up by the militia for a year or more — some still never having been charged with a crime — Bill Haywood came to one conclusion. He believed that the companies and their supporters in government — intent upon forcing wage cuts and employers' freedom to fire union miners — were conducting class warfare against the working class.
The editor of one local newspaper, Wilbur H. Stewart of the Mullan Mirror, dared to criticize the bullpen and its keepers. Sinclair appeared at his door alongside a major and several soldiers with unsheathed bayonets. Sinclair declared,
I find that you have been publishing a seditious newspaper, inciting riot and insurrection, and we have concluded that publication of your paper must cease.
Stewart was taken to the bullpen, where he was assigned to garbage and latrine
Latrine
A latrine is a communal facility containing one or more commonly many toilets which may be simple pit toilets or in the case of the United States Armed Forces any toilet including modern flush toilets...
duty. However, the paper did not stop publication; Stewart's young wife, Maggie, continued to publish the weekly. Sinclair impounded her type, and she contracted with another sympathetic publisher to continue the news. Eventually Stewart was released under instructions to end the criticism. He sold the newspaper instead.
Many populist elected officials in Shoshone County were rounded up for their support of the miners. The town sheriff of Mullan, Idaho
Mullan, Idaho
Mullan is a city located in a sheltered canyon of the Coeur d'Alene Mountains in Shoshone County in the northern part of the U.S. state of Idaho. The population was 840 at the 2000 census and decreased to 692 at the 2010 census. The city is in the east end of the Silver Valley mining district; the...
was arrested and sent to the bullpen.
May Arkwright Hutton
May Arkwright
May Hutton née Arkwright was a suffrage leader in the early history of the Pacific Northwest of the United States....
, whose husband was the engineer on the dynamite express, wrote a book, The coeur d' alenes: or, A Tale of the Modern Inquisition in Idaho, about the treatment of the miners, and her husband, at the hands of the mine owners and the sheriff.
Both Huttons and Ed Boyce
Ed Boyce
Ed Boyce was president of the Western Federation of Miners, a radical American labor organizer, socialist and hard rock mine owner.-Early life:...
, head of the Western Federation of Miners
Western Federation of Miners
The Western Federation of Miners was a radical labor union that gained a reputation for militancy in the mines of the western United States and British Columbia. Its efforts to organize both hard rock miners and smelter workers brought it into sharp conflicts – and often pitched battles...
, had invested in the Hercules silver mine before the 1899 war. After they had become wealthy mine owners, May Hutton sought to buy back all copies of her book. Ed Boyce quit the miners union to manage a hotel in Portland.
See also
- Coeur d'Alene, Idaho labor strike of 1892Coeur d'Alene, Idaho labor strike of 1892There were two related incidents between miners and mine owners in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho: the labor strike of 1892, and the labor confrontation of 1899....
- Coeur d'Alene miners' disputeCoeur d'Alene miners' disputeThere were two related incidents between miners and mine owners in the Coeur d'Alene Mining District of North Idaho: the Coeur d'Alene, Idaho labor strike of 1892, and the Coeur d'Alene, Idaho labor confrontation of 1899. This article is a brief overview of both events.The strike of 1892 had its...
(overview of both Coeur d'Alene incidents) - Ed BoyceEd BoyceEd Boyce was president of the Western Federation of Miners, a radical American labor organizer, socialist and hard rock mine owner.-Early life:...
, WFM leader - Frank SteunenbergFrank SteunenbergFrank Steunenberg was the fourth Governor of the State of Idaho, serving from 1897 until 1901. He is perhaps best known for his 1905 assassination by one-time union member Harry Orchard, who was also a paid informant for the Cripple Creek Mine Owners' Association...
, Governor of Idaho in 1899, assassinated in 1905 - Harry OrchardAlbert HorsleyAlbert Edward Horsley , best known by the pseudonym Harry Orchard, was a miner convicted of the 1905 political assassination of former Idaho Governor Frank Steunenberg...
, later convicted of assassinating former Idaho Governor Steunenberg - Steve AdamsSteve Adams (Western Federation of Miners)Steve Adams, sometimes known as Stephen Adams, played a minor, but particularly revealing, role in events surrounding the murder trial of Harry Orchard, and the trials of Western Federation of Miners leaders Bill Haywood, Charles Moyer, and George Pettibone, all charged with conspiring to murder...
, accused accomplice of Harry Orchard, unconvicted or acquitted in three trials - Bill HaywoodBill HaywoodWilliam Dudley Haywood , better known as "Big Bill" Haywood, was a founding member and leader of the Industrial Workers of the World , and a member of the Executive Committee of the Socialist Party of America...
, WFM union leader, later accused and acquitted of conspiracy to assassinate former Idaho Governor Steunenberg - George PettiboneGeorge PettiboneGeorge Pettibone was an Idaho miner. He was convicted of contempt of court and criminal conspiracy in the Coeur d'Alene, Idaho labor confrontation of 1899....
, WFM union supporter, later accused and acquitted of conspiracy to murder former Idaho Governor Steunenberg - Labor spiesLabor spiesLabor spies are persons recruited or employed for the purpose of gathering intelligence, committing sabotage, sowing dissent, or engaging in other similar activities, typically within the context of an employer/labor organization relationship....
- Colorado Labor WarsColorado Labor WarsColorado's most significant battles between labor and capital occurred primarily between miners and mine operators. In these battles the state government, with one clear exception, always took the side of the mine operators....
of 1903-04
Further reading
- New Politics, vol. 7, no. 1 (new series), whole no. 25, Summer 1998 by Steve Early http://www.wpunj.edu/~newpol/issue25/early25.htm
- Big Trouble: A Murder in a Small Western Town Sets Off a Struggle for the Soul of America by J. Anthony LukasJ. Anthony LukasJay Anthony Lukas, aka J. Anthony Lucas , was a Pulitzer Prize-winning American journalist and author, probably best known for his 1985 book Common Ground: A Turbulent Decade in the Lives of Three American Families, a classic study of race relations and school busing in Boston, Massachusetts, as...